


Closer to You

by moosetifying



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, First Kiss, Fix-It, Friendship, Getting Together, Love Confessions, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-23
Updated: 2020-06-23
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:54:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24884161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/moosetifying/pseuds/moosetifying
Summary: Twenty-five years is a very long time to be apart. With the clown safely dead, Richie and Eddie spend a night getting to know each other again.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 25
Kudos: 265





	Closer to You

**Author's Note:**

> The thing about Richie and Eddie is that, well, they don’t actually know each other that well if you think about it. By the time It Chapter Two rolls around, they’ve spent more time apart than together. There’s so much that they each must have experienced in the intervening years between the movies—we’re talking almost thirty years of living! This was meant to be a short fic exploring that. It quickly ballooned up into…well, whatever this is. It also took me a stupid amount of time to write and I’m glad to finally have it out of my brain. 
> 
> Title is from the [song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2QHa5khIP4) by Amo Amo. 
> 
> Biggest of shoutouts to my sister, who kindly read this over for me, even though she knows absolutely nothing about IT.

**7:12 pm**

Eddie didn’t let himself think about what he was doing until he had already knocked on Richie’s door. By then, though, Richie was opening it and it was too late. 

“Uh,” Richie said. He looked dishevelled and tired and very tall. “Hi?”

“I need to use your shower,” Eddie said. He hefted the pile of stuff in his arms—clean clothes, toiletry bag, phone with its screen still warm from being pressed to his ear—to demonstrate. “Mine has blood in it.”

Richie’s eyes snapped to Eddie’s bandaged cheek and he paled. “Yeah, sure. Mi bathtub es su bathtub.”

“That doesn’t even work,” Eddie snapped and brushed past Richie and into the room. 

The room was messy, and it made Eddie angry—angry in a way he’d forgotten, angry in a way only Richie could get him. It had been a long twenty-five years since he’d tasted this particular brand of outrage but here he was, with the sight of Richie’s crumpled clothing scattered around his open duffel bag—like he’d tossed it over but hadn’t even bothered to aim—making Eddie’s fists clench.

“Shower,” he said to Richie dumbly, and escaped.

Eddie spent his time in the shower concentrating all his energies on not wetting his face. The hospital had rebandaged his cheek and pumped him full of antibiotics to prevent any infection from the sheer amount of disgusting gunk he’d been soaked in. Eddie had had enough of playing fast and loose with an injury today—it was time to be careful again from here on out. 

Plus, it was a convenient excuse not to think about Richie, who was probably lying around being dumb and tall and doing something stupid at this exact moment. 

Eddie didn’t want to think about Richie. He also didn’t want to think about Myra and the phone call he’d just made. He didn’t want to think about New York or Derry or the dead clown in a crumbling cavern miles below the town. He didn’t want to think about his cheek or sewer water or the possibility of infection or the existence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. 

So he focused very carefully on cleaning himself, scrubbing off any remnants of the sewer, the clown, or the disgusting quarry water— _how_ had he allowed Bev and Bill to coax him in after them?—and determinedly not thinking about anything else. 

The shower had felt like safety, a warm, clean space keeping the rest of the world out. As soon as he stepped out of it, the panic returned, an edge in his stomach and sharp prickles up his throat, tightening it. But his inhaler was gone, sacrificed to that useless ritual, and Eddie was left alone with the strangling panic.

Richie looked up as Eddie left the bathroom. As Eddie had suspected, Richie was sprawled out, his overlarge body taking up most of the bed and his phone clutched in one giant hand.

“Hey, man,” he said. “Enjoy yourself?”

Eddie flushed, not liking what he was implying. “Shut up,” he snapped and then stood there impotently, clutching his dirty clothes and toiletries and phone, frozen in place.

Looking at Richie now, in this slightly grimy hotel room so far from where Eddie had been until two days ago, it was all hitting him. 

From the moment he’d answered that call from Mike, Eddie had felt cracked open. It was like a hard shell had built up over the 25 years since he’d left Derry and with the sound of Mike’s voice, it had broken apart and underneath was nothing but raw, vulnerable, exposed flesh. Without the memories of his bravery and of his friends who knew and loved him for who he was, Eddie had been left lost, angry alone. Trapped by all his mother had told him he was and without the ammunition to oppose it. Now here he was, his memories back and more lost and unsure than ever. Unsure of who he was anymore, and who he even wanted to be, who he should have been and could have. 

The only thing that had helped was being with his friends. Whatever else had been taken from him, whatever else he was confused about, that alone remained true and good and _real_.

So no, Eddie didn’t want to go back to his room, filled with blood and the suitcases that held the life and reminders of that old, lost Eddie. He wanted to stay here, with Richie, the best friend he hadn’t seen in twenty-five years and who made him feel the most alive he’d ever felt. 

Richie glanced down at his phone, then looked back up when he realized Eddie wasn’t moving. “You good, Eds?” 

“Don’t call me that,” Eddie said automatically. The nickname of his childhood and the familiar pattern stirred Eddie to action. He set down his things—the dirty clothes on the ground as his lip curled in disgust; the toiletries and phone on the nearby table—and perched on the single uncomfortable chair that came with the hotel room. 

Richie straightened up, contracting in his sprawled limbs until he was perched at the head of the bed, legs drawn up and back pressed to the headboard. 

The newly created distance between them felt as wide as the Grand Canyon, and it was full of the many years that had separated them. Eddie had felt a connection spark instantly between him and Richie and the other Losers in the Chinese restaurant—the connection they’d felt that summer so many years ago. The seven of them fallen back into old familiarity so quickly and Eddie had let that buoy him up, let it float him along into something new. 

Now? Sitting perched at the end of this unergonomic chair, staring at a stiff Richie? That connection didn’t feel as present anymore. Had he imagined it? 

“So…how’ve you been?” Eddie said lamely. 

Richie immediately started laughing. “What the fuck, dude?" 

“Excuse me for wanting to get to know you again after almost three decades!” Eddie snapped. “Now tell me about your life, you piece of shit!" 

Richie sobered up quickly after that. He picked at the bedspread, avoiding Eddie’s eyes. “I don’t know, man. What do you even want me to talk about? You know about the comedy.” 

“What did you study in college?” Eddie asked, undeterred. 

“I dropped out after like, a semester, dude. Moved to LA with a piece of shit car and one hundred bucks.” 

Eddie can just about picture it: 18-year-old Richie, tall but without the broad build that time would give him, impulsively leaving everything behind to chase a dream. 

“Was it good, being in LA?” 

“I was broke as shit,” Richie snorts. “But it turned out okay. I’m a fucking comedian. I have a west coast tour to finish up—" 

“Ghostwritten—” 

“Yeah, yeah, but I’m still famous.” Richie shrugged expansively. “Got a house in LA, tons of fans, it’s all working out pretty well. Anyway, enough about me—spill!” 

“Spill?" 

Richie threw a pillow at Eddie; it hit him on the shoulder and Eddie glared back. “Real mature.” 

Richie stuck his tongue out. “So how are things in risk analyst land? You showing those risks who’s boss? Making those risks call you daddy?” 

"I am begging you to stop talking before you kill off all my brain cells,” Eddie said. “Yes, I’m ‘analyzing risks’”—he made a point of using the most obnoxiously overexaggerated air quotes he can pull off. “Even though my coworkers are complete idiots, I enjoy my job. And New York is great.” 

"Huh,” Richie said. He poked at the bedspread again. “And—and the wife?” 

That was enough to pop what little good mood Eddie had managed to build up. He frowned. “Hnngh. She’s—fine. We have a house out in Long Island. Commute sucks but it’s worth it to be away from Manhattan.” 

“Nice,” Richie said. 

The silence came upon them again, that stilted silence made all the worse by the memories of how they’d used to be—age six or nine or thirteen, whenever—loud and brash and gleeful, energy crackling between them like sparks. 

The thing was, that Eddie didn’t have much right now. He didn’t have his suitcases or his house or any of the trappings of his old, banal life. Eddie had come to Richie’s room because he’d left everything behind and he was flying by the seat of his pants and there hadn’t been anywhere else he’d wanted to go. 

Eddie needed. Eddie _needed_ to know that he hadn’t made up that exhilarating, dizzying feeling of an old friendship found anew. He needed to know he wasn’t alone. 

So Eddie did something very uncharacteristic. He took a risk. 

“Fuck it. I asked my wife for a divorce,” he admitted; the words lay heavy on his tongue and felt no lighter once they were out. 

“You what?” Richie’s eyes were wide behind his glasses. 

“Before I knocked on your door—I called her and told her I wanted a divorce.” 

Eddie was treated to the rare sight of Richie Tozier absolutely speechless. 

“I was lying, okay?” Eddie snapped, vulnerability making him angry. C’mon Richie—he was cracking himself open here, scooping out his insides and laying them out for Richie to observe. He needed Richie to work with him here. “My life sucks! I have piles of pills and I can’t go on the subway without using my inhaler and I haven’t had bread in ten years!" 

Richie stared, completely frozen in place. Eddie was seriously considering suffocating him with one of the pillows Richie was lounging on—Eddie worked out five days a week, he knew he could get Richie, especially if it was a surprise attack—when Richie blinked and licked his lips. 

“I was lying too,” he said, and shrugged expansively. “Things sucked without you. Even though I couldn’t remember you—or, or any of the others, I still missed you. I’m all alone in LA, really. It’s just me and my stupid fucking fakeass comedy.” 

Sometime over the last few minutes, they’d shifted closer together; Eddie had pulled the chair closer while Richie perched on the end of the bed. Now, Eddie got up and sat next to Richie on the bed. Richie turned his head away from him, breathing quietly. 

“I didn’t even realize what was wrong with my life until I saw you and the others,” Eddie said. “I just thought—I was born like that. That I was going to be sad and angry and—and alone, my whole life, and that’s just how I was.” 

Richie nodded tightly. Eddie could feel tension thrumming through his large frame, but Richie wasn’t letting Eddie see his face. Eddie clenched his hands into tight fists and breathed deeply—in, out, in, out, feeling his lungs contract and expand, grounding himself in his body. 

Then Richie—changed. His head came up and his shoulders lowered and he flashed a grin at Eddie. “Let’s go out.” 

“What?” Eddie blinked. “Now? It’s—” he checked his watch. “It’s almost eight at night.” 

“It’s like, barely night,” Richie said. “C’mon, man. We spent half the day killing a clown and the other half of the day in a hospital. Now you want to sit here in this ratty-ass hotel room and mope?" 

Eddie felt his mouth curl in a moue of disapproval. “What, and you want to go out drinking? In Derry?” 

Richie barreled on. “Not drinking, just—out!" 

“I repeat,” Eddie said. “In Derry?" 

But Richie was bouncing in place, eyes alight; he had obviously decided that nothing else would do but an evening out in this nightmare town. 

But this, too, was a familiar pattern from their childhood, was it not? Richie with an idea and Eddie giving in, because Richie was never boring to Eddie, and Eddie always wanted to see what he could come up with this time. 

Richie could see that Eddie was giving in even before Eddie had to say anything aloud. He grinned. “Let’s do this!" 

“If this goes wrong, I am one hundred percent going to hold it over you forever,” Eddie said. But he grabbed his phone and followed Richie out nonetheless. 

**8:26 pm**

Eddie had expected bars, endless shots, grimy holes in the wall. Instead, what Richie wanted to do was—get ice cream. 

“It’s eight-thirty at _night_ ,” Eddie hissed. “I’m on a strict sleep regimen and sugar after seven just disrupts my schedule! Sleep hygiene is important, _Richard_.” 

“C’mon, Eds,” Richie said, already heading to the counter of the tiny ice cream shop he’d somehow found in the middle of downtown Derry. “Live a little.” 

Eddie glared at his retreating back but joined him at the counter where Richie was rapidly ordering a mix of flavours and toppings that, to Eddie, seemed both needlessly expensive and seriously ill-advised. Eddie was fully prepared to _not_ order any ice cream but Richie was staring at him and his eyes were so blue behind his glasses and he was definitely pouting just the tiniest bit—goddammit, he knew Eddie couldn’t resist that look. Goddammit. 

Eddie ordered ice cream. 

Of course, Richie immediately took offense to his perfectly reasonable order of a single scoop of vanilla, and heckled him all the way out the door. 

“Shut up!” Eddie said. 

“Vanilla?” 

“Shut up!" 

“We killed a fucking clown, man!” Richie said, not bothering to keep his voice down despite the lateness of the hour. “We defeated our childhood nightmare, faced down our fears, regained our memories—and you can’t even have a little ice cream fun?” 

“I’ll give you a little ice cream fun to your face,” Eddie snapped. 

Richie let out a snorting little laugh and then scooped up a spoonful of his hideous ice cream and held it out to Eddie. “Try it.” 

Eddie stared at it. It was bright pink and blue. There was a gummy bear sitting demurely on top, coated in melting dairy product. Eddie had never seen anything less appetizing. 

“Try it!” The spoon wiggled closer to Eddie’s face. “Come onnnn! The spoon’s clean! That’s a no-cootie guarantee from the Trashmouth himself." 

Eddie ate the ice cream. It was disgusting. 

“Blerghhhh,” he said, making a face. 

Richie threw his head back and laughed and didn’t stop laughing even when Eddie growled and stomped away from him. 

When Richie caught up, Eddie said, “It feels weird, how little _this_ has changed.” He gestured between them with his spoon. “We haven’t seen each other since we were—what, fifteen? By all rights, we should feel like strangers. But…”

“Yeah,” Richie said, curiously subdued, even as he finished off the disgusting pink and blue stuff and got started on the mint chocolate chip. “Mike thinks we have a magical bond of friendship.”

“What?” Eddie said.

“He told me at the hospital. He thinks we all have a special connection that gave us the power to defeat the clown.”

Eddie frowned. “I don’t remember this.” 

“You were somewhere else getting stitched up,” Richie said. “Anyway, Bill heard and got all excited and then they spent an hour talking about metaphysical friendship powers and shit. Those two are massive nerds.”

“Ben was a nerd,” Eddie said, remembering the first time they’d seen his room.

“Yeah, he was,” Richie laughed. Then he tried to feed Eddie some of his mint chocolate chip ice cream and Eddie gave up on the conversation in favour of slapping furiously at Richie’s outstretched arm. 

When the ice cream was finished, Eddie made to head back in the direction of Richie’s car.

“Where are you going?” Richie’s voice sounded puzzled.

Eddie raised an eyebrow at him. “We went out. We got ice cream. Now it’s time to go back and get to bed like the forty-year olds we actually are.”

“Why, Eddie,” Richie said in an old-timey Hollywood accent. “It’s not even nine. The night has just barely begun! There are so many wonders yet to be seen!”

“What is wrong with you?” Eddie said. “We spent all of last night fighting for our fucking lives in some haunted mansion cavern! Remember the part where I got stabbed yesterday? And you—” He flailed at the air, trying to mime the axe murder that Richie had very much committed. Richie’s eyes darkened and Eddie hurried on. “We should be on fucking Xanax, in bed, recovering! Not out here in this hellhole.”

Richie waited patiently for Eddie to finish catching his breath, and then said, “Feel better?”

Eddie blinked.

“Yeah, actually,” he said.

“Look, man, I get it. But I don’t want to squat inside all terrified anymore.” Richie poked a toe at the ground, then stood up straight. “The clown’s gone. We kicked its ass. We held its heart in our hands and crushed it.” He held his hand up and flexed it, as if to demonstrate. “I’ve been scared of this town my whole fucking life. I don’t want to be scared anymore. I want to walk around and—and show it who’s boss.”

“A victory tour, huh,” Eddie said.

Richie smiled. “One last ‘fuck you’ to this shithole.”

Eddie bit his lip.

On one hand, there was a bed waiting to be slept in, shelter, heating, relative safety, and his friends. On the other hand, there was Richie. 

With a jolt like a shock to the system, Eddie realized that it wasn’t a hard choice to make. He loved his friends and had missed them dearly. But twenty-five years without Richie…It was like he’d stored up all those years of missing him without even realizing and his brain was cashing in those chips now. It wanted all Richie, all the time. 

Eddie was more than happy to indulge it.

“Ugh,” he said. “I can’t believe I’m saying this but…fine. Let’s go hang out some more in Derry, in the dark.”

Richie smiled.

**9:07 pm**

“This place is so fucking weird,” Richie said as they strolled past a series of small shops, each of them darkened and locked tight. The streets were completely empty, even though they were in downtown Derry and it was barely nine at night. Eddie might be in favour of early bedtimes, but he knew most people weren’t, and a town shutting down this early just seemed creepy. 

“I know, right?” Eddie said. Ahead, a cat was paused in the act of crossing the street; it watched them with eyes that seemed to glow in the night. Eddie waved an arm at it, trying to shoo it away.

“Hey, fuck off!” Richie called. The cat hissed and kept going.

“Was I the only one freaked out by how unfreaked out the hospital was?” Eddie asked. “Six people show up covered in blood and gunk, bruised to hell, and two of them with stab wounds? They didn’t even blink, let alone ask any questions. If I were a medical professional, you can bet I’d have had a few fucking questions for us.”

“Yeah, and I’m pretty sure the Townhouse doesn’t have any staff,” Richie said. 

“Yes! It’s so fucking creepy!” Eddie took a covert look around the empty street. “This town violates like every rule of the real world. Bowers was an escaped convict. We should have police crawling up our asses with questions!”

Richie smiled without any amusement. “Welcome to Derry.”

“Mike said that It made this town…worse,” Eddie said quietly. “That It lived underneath Derry for millions of years and Its influence changed it, warped it. Made it darker, made the people meaner, under the clown’s control.” He remembered Mike telling him, the exhaustion in his voice and the lines on his face telling of the many years Mike spent in Derry, alone. Facing it all, alone. “Looks like killing It hasn’t fixed the weirdness.”

“This place is fucked up,” Richie said harshly. “And I think it’s permanent. I think this town is never going to fully scrub away all the shit that went on here.” 

Eddie looked over but Richie had his face turned away. The sliver of cheek and jaw that Eddie could see was drawn taut. Eddie stared. 

Eddie hated Derry. Of course he hated Derry—they all did. His memories of the place were inevitably warped by the hold his mother had on him, by the remembrance of being controlled and stifled. But there was something deep in the town itself, dark and rotten, that he had been able to sense. The way Henry and his gang had freely stalked them through the streets like wolves lazily hunting rabbits. The way the adults’ eyes had passed over the scenes of bullying, harassment, assault that took place in front of them. It was clear now, knowing what he did, that Derry was a twisted funhouse of horror all under the grasping influence of the monster that dwelled miles beneath it. 

But there was something more to the way Richie was talking about Derry. Something that ran deeper. Eddie could sense that much, but he couldn’t sense what was causing it. Whatever it was, Richie had built a hard shell around, drawing it deep inside himself and locking it tight. 

It was frustrating, to reconnect with Richie so well, to feel that closeness, the rightness of it all, the exhilaration of something real and lasting, only to come against that barrier again and again. To know there was something beyond it, something further, that Eddie couldn’t get to and Richie wasn’t letting him see.

But Eddie didn’t feel ready to push Richie on this. He didn’t know Richie again well enough yet. Wasn’t that the point of tonight? Seeing each other as they were now, adults? Learning each other again? 

So Eddie took a mental step back, let out a breath, and said, “I’ll be glad to get out of here.”

“You can say that again,” Richie snorted. “Once I blow this popsicle stand, it’s staying _blown_. That’s a Trashmouth guarantee.”

“Two Trashmouth guarantees in one night?” Eddie said, deliberately keeping his voice flat. “Aren’t I lucky.”

Richie barked out a laugh. “Baby, the night’s just getting started.”

 **9:31 pm**

Without conscious thought or prior discussion, they ended up in front of Richie’s house. It looked neat, well-maintained, yet oddly like it was missing something essential—or maybe that was just to Eddie’s biased eyes, considering the lack of Toziers within it. He had liked being around any and all Toziers, whether Went, Maggie, and especially Richie, always especially Richie. Their house had been fun, loud, messy, and full of life in a way the Kaspbrak home had never been.

“Man, what a bummer,” Richie said. “I was hoping it would look nicer than I remembered, but nope. Still La Casa Crapola.”

“ _Please_ stop abusing the Spanish language,” Eddie said. 

“Hey, remember that tree?” Richie said, ignoring him. 

The tree in question was tall and broad, its branches widely spread, its trunk knotted. It sat squarely in the middle of the front lawn of Richie’s old house. 

“Yeah, I remember the tree,” Eddie said.

“Remember that time I lost my tooth on it? When we were seven.”

As soon as Richie said it, Eddie remembered. The memory came in fits and starts, covered in an odd haze, the way all his childhood memories had returned, like the clown’s magic was still doing its best to obscure them. 

He remembered chasing Richie, being angry about something—something Richie had taken from him? Yes, Richie had taken a toy of some sort. And Eddie had run after him, yelling to give it back, when Richie had run straight into the tree. Eddie’s mind treated him to a clear shot of Richie sitting on the ground, dazed and clutching at his face, blood on his mouth and a single white tooth lying on the grass.

“You cried,” Richie said, his voice faraway. “Remember? Like, instantly. I went smack and you brought out the waterworks.”

“I felt guilty,” Eddie said. “I hated that I’d gotten you hurt.”

Eddie remembered the tears, but those weren’t important. The most important part was Richie, still bloody and shocked, but instantly up and at Eddie’s side, clutching him close in a tight hug and whispering, “Hey, don’t worry! It’s okay. It doesn’t even hurt.”

“You hugged me until I calmed down,” Eddie said, smiling wryly at the memory. Richie had been a sweet kid.

Richie scuffed his foot on the ground. “You know, it really sucked here without you. When you left. Having Bev and Stan go was hard enough, but having you leave too…”

“I’m sorry,” Eddie said. “I remember being so angry at my mom when she decided to go. I seriously considered running away.”

“Why didn’t you?” Richie’s voice was curiously vulnerable.

“I was fifteen,” Eddie said. “Where was I going to go? As if my mom wasn’t going to call the police right away and hound them until they tracked me down. No way she was letting me go that easy.” He looked at Richie. “When did you move?”

“Seventeen,” Richie said. “My parents just upped and left and took me with them.”

“Where’d you go?”

“Ohio.” Richie’s voice was sour, and he rolled his eyes when Eddie started to laugh. “Yeah, yeah, yuk it up, the Trashmouth in Ohio.”

“Ohio,” Eddie said. “Jesus.”

“They’re still there. Every year, I have to go to _Ohio_ for Christmas.” Richie shuddered.

“No wonder you ran away to LA.” 

“I escaped Ohio with my soul intact,” Richie said. “But not my dignity. Come on, let’s get out of here, this place is making me feel like my mom is gonna pop up and start yelling at me for breaking my glasses again.” He looked at Eddie consideringly. “You wanna go to yours?”

“Yeah,” Eddie said, surprising even himself. “I think I do.”

**9:59 pm**

They walked to Eddie’s house, leaving Richie’s car behind even though it would have been faster to drive. Eddie spent the walk with his stomach knotted up, trying not to think about what was ahead. He hadn’t seen his childhood home in twenty-five years, and he wasn’t sure what to expect.

The house was squatting on its overgrown lawn like a monster lying in wait. But when they had stopped in front of it and Eddie let himself really take it in, he realized that it just looked worn down, a monster without fangs. Old, its paint peeling, the screen door ripped. It looked totally innocuous, not a hint at the memories it contained within them, the memories of weakness and manipulation, sickbeds and medicines, and a world that was shrinking in on him as the list of what he was not allowed grew longer and longer. 

“It looks different than I remember,” Eddie admitted to Richie. “But also exactly the same.”

“It’s coming back to me now,” Richie said. “All those sweet, sweet memories of fucking your mom all night long—” 

Eddie hit him, then hit him again for good measure. Richie cackled. 

Suddenly a wave of sadness hit Eddie, mixed with nostalgia. Sadness for what was and what had happened since then. For the little boy he’d been, scared and ignorant. And for who he was now, scared and ignorant yet again, thanks to the manipulation of those outside him. Eddie was really sick of being controlled, whether by mothers or supernatural clowns who used you to fulfill their own needs, regardless of the harm caused.

Richie, as if sensing Eddie’s change in mood, quieted and shifted closer to Eddie. Eddie welcomed it. It gave him the bravery to open his mouth and admit, in a shamed whisper, “I was glad when she died. I felt horrible about it, but I was so glad.”

“You’re allowed to be angry. She was a shitty mom.” Richie sounded uncharacteristically hesitant. 

“She was still my mother,” Eddie said. “I don’t know…All these feelings just keep getting tangled up in my chest when I think about her. She was horrible and lied to me and tried to control me, but she was also my mother. She took care of me. She was supposed to love me.” He shifted uncomfortably under Richie’s focused gaze. “It’s just hard to figure out how to feel.”

“I get it,” Richie said, and Eddie felt that he really did. 

With that sense of understanding between them, Eddie pushed on. “My wife—She—” He had to stop and take a breath, but gathered himself enough to say, “It wasn’t her fault she reminded me of my mother. The clown—it made me forget…and it kept me trapped. Stuck in that old mindset. It’s not Myra’s fault, but I can’t live with it anymore.”

Richie just listened, worrying at his lip, his eyes and attention entirely on Eddie.

“I don’t even know why I’m dumping this all on you,” Eddie said, and let out a shaky sigh that wavered too close to a sob for comfort. 

“Yeah, this is a major buzzkill,” Richie said. 

“You’re right,” Eddie said. “C’mon, let’s go.”

“You sure? We can stay and reminisce more about how your mom sucked, I don’t mind.”

“No, let’s go,” Eddie said. He’d come here again, seen it all with adult eyes, and now he was done. Ready to leave this all behind, to put aside the spectre of his mother and step away, unburdened. 

With one last lingering look at the house where he’d spent his childhood, they moved on.

 **10:27 pm**

“—not only is Chet a piece of shit when it comes to actually following up with clients, he insists on CCing me onto unnecessary conversation!” Eddie jabbed at the air. “Even after I told him to stop! Once, I looked him straight in the eye and told him I’d punch him in the face if he did it one more time. And he did it again literally an hour later!”

Richie was laughing so hard that nothing was coming out but a wheeze. With an effort, he sucked in a breath and said, “Did you?”

“Punch him?”

Richie nodded, still grinning.

“No. He reported me to HR and they gave me a lecture about appropriate workplace conduct.” Eddie frowned; the memory of that torturous twenty minutes still rankled. “Fuck that guy.”

“Fuck that guy!” Richie took up the cheer with glee. “Fuck Chet! Fuck Chet and his mother!”

“Yeah!” Eddie said. Beaming, Richie reached and slung an arm—long and hairy and weirdly strong, like a gorilla or a lumberjack—around Eddie’s shoulders, bringing him off balance and into the shelter of Richie’s side. 

“Ugh,” Eddie said, trying to shove himself away. But Richie held strong; with aplomb, he reached over with his other hand and ruffled Eddie’s hair.

“Little Eddie Spaghetti,” he said, his voice fond. “The tiniest of noodles, all grown up. Into a slightly less tiny noodle.”

“Again, I am average—height—” Eddie punctuated each word with punches to Richie’s side. “Just because I didn’t grow up to be fucking Bigfoot—”

“—Zing!”

“—doesn’t mean I’m some stunted freak!”

Richie gave him one last tight squeeze and then finally released him. Scowling, Eddie tried to rearrange his hair into some semblance of order but knew there was no point. He’d showered out the gel and hadn’t put any back in afterward. He would have to resign himself to looking like a particularly fluffy Q-tip.

“Got any horrible co-worker stories of your own?” he asked Richie as they resumed walking.

“Nah, you don’t really want to hear those,” Richie said dismissively. “Not when you have a whole parade of asshole coworkers to complain about.”

“No, c’mon,” Eddie said. “I want to hear about your life too! What does the Trashmouth get up to in LA?”

“Ehhh, a little of this, a little of that.” Richie waved a hand. 

“West Coast man of mystery, huh,” Eddie said. “C’mon! Friends, girlfriends, weird LA encounters? Anything?” 

“I don’t really have—Uh, well there’s my manager, I guess? He’s a pretty funny dude. He’s short and angry and like, stupidly particular about things and yells at me when I do something dumb—Oh shit.” Eddie looked over and saw Richie stopped in place, gaping in horror that, to Eddie’s surprise, didn’t seem faked.

“What?” Eddie asked.

“Nothing,” Richie said immediately. 

“You look like you’re going to throw up, what is it?” 

“Nothing, Eds, I promise.” Richie attempted a smile; it looked sickly and Eddie, alarmed, was about to push further into what could possibly be freaking Richie out this much, when Richie launched into a description of his apartment in LA.

Eddie was so horrified by Richie’s listing of the contents of his fridge before he’d left for his tour that he immediately forgot all about what Richie had been saying in favour of yelling at Richie that he was going to die of scurvy.

Richie tried to defend himself, but he was laughing too hard to string more than two words together.

“Are your teeth loose?” Eddie demanded. “Are your gums inflamed? Let me see your gums. Richie, open your mouth and let me see your gums!”

Richie let out a noise very much like a train whistle. 

“Nutrition is no joke, Richie!” Eddie said. “95% of Americans don’t have enough fibre in their diet!”

“I poop just fine, thanks for your concern, Eds,” Richie said, wiping at his eyes.

Eddie let out an involuntary growl of annoyance. “That’s not the point, Richard!” He stumbled on a rock and kicked at it; it went skittering off into the darkness and hit something with a thump. There was a rustling sound, then another, even louder rustling sound. Eddie yelped and then suddenly his field of vision was being entirely blocked by one semi-famous comedian. 

“Um,” Eddie said, staring at Richie’s broad back. Richie had one of his stupidly big hands on Eddie’s arm, holding him firmly in place, safely behind Richie. Eddie felt a sudden urge to lean forward, crowd up against Richie, get closer. The impulse wasn’t an unfamiliar one—he used to get these flashes all the time as a kid, wanting to get nearer to Richie, whether wrestling or hugs or just standing next to him. He’d always chalked it up as being part and parcel of the best friend thing. Richie was his favourite; of course Eddie’d want to be close to him. 

Swallowing, Eddie said, “What is it?”

Richie said, “Just a rabbit.” He exhaled loudly and his shoulders slumped, the tension going out of him. “Well, that was majorly lame of me.”

“We did spend the last day getting tortured by a murderous alien clown monster,” Eddie pointed out. “We’re allowed to be jumpy. Can you let go of my arm?”

Richie dropped his hand immediately. 

“You know, walking around Derry in the pitch black was your idea,” Eddie pointed out as he came out from behind Richie. “I would have been perfectly fine just staying at the hotel and getting a proper night’s sleep.”

Richie still looked unsettled. Eddie jerked his chin away from the bushes. “Let’s go?”

“Yeah,” Richie said. “Yeah, let’s go.” 

**11:07 pm**

At some point, Richie got tired of walking, but instead of finding a bench like a normal person, he insisted on plopping down on the curb, there and then.

Eddie tried to dissuade him, citing the possibilities of a car driving by and running over his legs; of the health risks that sitting on cold stone entailed; but Richie refused to do anything but sit on the curb in the middle of fuck-all, Derry, Maine.

Eddie, in turn, refused to join him on the curb, but Richie put his jacket down next to him and smiled encouragingly, patting at the jacket, until Eddie gave in and perched on it gingerly. True night had fallen. The houses around them were completely dark. Nothing was moving—no one in the houses, no one in the empty streets. Still, though, the air was fresh, and the darkness felt enveloping rather than strangling. It was oddly peaceful, despite the fact that it was Derry. 

Eddie sat in silence and felt Richie’s warmth along his side and the dark made him brave enough to ask, “So why the ghostwriter?”

“Huh?” Richie asked, lifting his head from where he had been staring at his feet, spread out ahead of him.

“For your comedy. Why aren’t you writing your own shit?” Eddie nudged Richie’s side gently with his elbow. “You’re pretty funny, you know. You don’t need some idiot dickwad writing jokes about accidentally calling his girlfriend ugly.”

Richie stared at him. “That—that was from my last special…You’ve seen it?”

Eddie snapped his mouth shut.

“Eddie, tell me! You’ve seen it?”

Eddie shook his head resolutely.

“Eddie, Eddie, Eds, c’mon,” Richie coaxed, leaning over. “Edddddiiieeeee….”

Eddie could feel his eyebrows slamming down over his eyes, the deeply wrought lines of disapproval around his mouth crinkling up in a frown. 

“You did!” Richie sounded delighted. “Oh my god, you’ve totally seen it! Even _I_ haven’t seen it!”

“You don’t watch your own comedy?” 

“Of course not!” Richie said. “Why would I watch myself saying gross shit I didn’t write?” 

“There are so many things wrong with you,” Eddie said. “And that includes your comedy. Which brings me back to my original question—why a ghostwriter?”

“I—” Richie said. And then paused, the word hanging in the air for a long minute. Eddie waited patiently, but then Richie’s face closed off, like a door slamming shut. “I dunno, man. What can I say? Gotta do what you gotta do. A job is a job. Et cetera, et cetera.” He pronounced the Latin with a mishmash of an accent that Eddie couldn’t place. 

“Richie—”

“Just part of the job, Eddie,” Richie said flatly. “My manager thought it would boost my career. And it has. That’s all there is to it.”

Eddie gnawed at his lip. He didn’t know what he’d said wrong but clearly he’d said _something_. He’d bumped against that barrier Richie had erected, and Richie was retreating. 

He couldn’t remember Richie ever being like this when they were kids—that Richie, eyes big and bulbous behind his glasses, had been over-the-top, ridiculous, loud, aggravating in the extreme, but never closed off. Never hidden. Never untouchable. Something had changed in Richie over the long decades apart. He didn’t know what, but it had, and Richie clearly didn’t want to talk about it.

“I’m tired,” Richie said abruptly. “And I’ve kept you up way past your nerdy little bedtime. Let’s head back.”

It wasn’t a question. Eddie watched as Richie stood up, the line of his shoulders, straight, firm, stubborn. Then sighed and got up to join him on the long walk back to the car.

 **12:02 am**

“Whatever I said wrong, I’m sorry,” Eddie said quietly to Richie’s back. “I didn’t mean to ruin the night.”

Richie, unlocking his car door from where he’d parked it on the side of a street, froze. He didn’t turn. “You didn’t ruin it, Eds. I’m just tired.”

Tired, Eddie thought, his stomach curdling. Right. Something was clearly eating at Richie and Eddie had no idea what it was or how he could help.

Something inside of Eddie was aching—the lonely, lost part of him, the part where his friends had lived in his heart, which had then been roughly excised, torn away when he’d left town and lost his memories. He’d gotten those beloved friends back and the first hints of healing had begun…but the old wound was opening up again. There was nothing but distance emanating from Richie and it hurt Eddie more than he could say.

All he could do was get in the car and wait quietly as Richie got it started and drove it away.

**12:20 am**

Near the end of the silent ride back to the Townhouse, Eddie’s phone rang. When he answered, he was greeted by Mike’s rumbling voice.

“So you haven’t up and left, huh,” Mike said.

“Ah fuck, sorry Mike,” Eddie sighed, rubbing at his forehead. “We totally forgot to text you guys.”

“We?”

“Richie wanted to go out.” Eddie deliberately kept his eyes straight ahead, not looking at Richie. “He convinced me to come along. We’ve just been wandering around, catching up.”

“It feels like old times, you two running off together,” Mike said. His voice was tired, but warm. “You guys were kinda always in your own world. I guess some things don’t change.”

“Yeah,” Eddie said. “I guess so.”

Richie was silent beside him, a hulk of immovable stone. Eddie hung up and tried to breathe properly through the tight feeling in his chest.

Eddie wanted to say something to pierce the awful distance Richie had up around him like a shield. He wanted to grasp Richie’s shoulder and look deep in his eyes and say, Please, Richie. Rich, please. My mother is dead and I’m leaving my wife. I hate my coworkers and I don’t have anyone except Mike and Bill, Bev and Ben, and you. You, you, you. Please don’t leave me in this alone. Please don’t leave me behind.

But he hadn’t known Richie since Eddie’s mother had taken him away, fifteen and heartbroken and angry. Something had yawned wide and hungry in that time; something that was keeping Richie enclosed in its greedy arms, too far away for Eddie to penetrate. He’d always been able to get through to Richie, but not now. Maybe they really had changed too much. Maybe Richie had; maybe Eddie had. Either way, what was done, was done. The clown had taken much more than their memories, than Stan, than Georgie. It had taken this too.

Eddie was picturing a future of Loser get-togethers, with Richie smiling and talking, but still empty behind the eyes, still distant, when Richie drove up to the Townhouse and turned off the car. 

He didn’t move after. He sat with his hands clasped loosely on the steering wheel, gazing through the windshield. Eddie was about to say something—what, he wasn’t sure—when Richie made a noise and turned to Eddie, his eyes flashing. “Jesus, just stop! I can’t stand that fucking look you’re giving me!”

“What fucking look!” Eddie snapped, confused but ready to fight about it. He’d done _nothing_ ; all he’d done was sit around quietly. Richie was the one who’d been acting weird and standoffish and rude. Eddie should very rightfully be the one yelling and getting angry.

“Don’t pretend you haven’t been giving me the big ole Bambi eyes all the way back here,” Richie said. “Your eyes are still so fucking huge, it’s like they grew with your head.” He clenched his fists and hit himself on the head—lightly, but Eddie was alarmed anyway.

“Don’t fucking do that, you’ll give yourself a concussion or worse!” He was reaching out to Richie before he could stop himself. 

“The truth is, Eddie, I’m a coward,” Richie said with a laugh that didn’t sound happy. “Look. I need to show you something.”

Eddie opened his mouth to protest, to ask questions, anything, but Richie turned on him with flashing eyes, the bulk of him suddenly very present. “Please,” he said, sounding desperate in a way Richie had never sounded before tonight. “Please.”

Eddie closed his mouth. He nodded, and Richie started up the car and pulled away from the Townhouse and back into the silent darkness of the night. 

**12:25 am**

Eddie stayed quiet as Richie drove, feeling the tension emanating from Richie and filling up the car like a noxious cloud of gas. It took him a while to realize just where Richie was going—the town looked different in the dark—but when he did, he couldn’t help but glance at Richie. What the fuck?

“Are you taking us to the Kissing Bridge?” he asked.

Richie just looked straight ahead, his jaw clenching up. A muscle in his cheek twitched. Eddie knew he was staring and quickly turned away.

Richie parked and got out, and after a moment, Eddie did too.

“C’mon,” Richie said; his voice sounded choked and he was breathing loudly enough that Eddie could hear it from the other side of the car. 

Once they were out on the bridge itself, Richie stopped in place and stared, then slowly stood aside so Eddie could see what he’d been looking at.

Amid the scattered wooden evidence of decades of grubby teenage desires, rivalries, and declarations, a splintering carving stood out: R+E. 

Richie pointed at the letters and then stood there as if they explained everything.

“What?” Eddie said. “What is it?”

Richie stared at him and pointed again, violently. 

“What!” Eddie said.

“I swear to God, Eds!” Richie said. “R plus E. Richie plus Eddie.”

Eddie blinked. 

“I carved this when we were thirteen. I’m gay, dude.”

Silence.

“What does that mean?” Eddie asked.

“I’m gay?” Richie stared at him. “I’m into dudes? I like dick?”

“I know what gay means! I mean that!” Eddie gestured frantically at the letters carved into the scarred wood of the Kissing Bridge. “That!”

“Oh. Um.” Richie didn’t seem to be keeping up—which was odd, because he normally could keep up with Eddie like no one else could. “I—I liked you? I mean. I loved you. When we were kids.”

“You—I don’t understand.”

“I loved you!” Richie said, shoving his glasses back and glaring at Eddie. “What are you, an idiot? It means you were my favourite person in the whole world! I always wanted to be close to you! I always want to be around you! I’m crazy about you!”

Eddie felt like he’d been shoved off a cliff and was flailing around for solid ground that wasn’t there anymore. “You—what?”

Richie sighed and all the fight seemed to go out of him in that big breath. His shoulders slumped. “I love you. Present tense. Hit me like a smack in the face when I saw you again in that restaurant.”

But Eddie was still stuck. “I was your favourite person in the world? You wanted to be close to me? You—you wanted to be around me?” 

“Don’t rub it in, please,” Richie said, very quietly. “Please.”

“But—but you were _my_ favourite person in the world. I always wanted to spend as much time with you as I could.” Eddie’s head was whirling. “I—Is that what that means?”

Richie started to say something but Eddie couldn’t hear it over the rushing in his ears. It was like he was stuck on some calculation he just couldn’t complete, a piece of reality his mind couldn’t comprehend.

“I always wanted to be close to you,” he said. “Is that what that means?”

But Richie stood silent; there were no answers in his face, but Eddie could see that barrier dropping just the same, the hard shell Richie had built around his heart crumbling down, revealing years-old pain and fear and love—love that Eddie could see now, finally. He hadn’t recognized it on Richie; hell, he hadn’t even known how to recognize it in himself. But it was washing over him now, a long, endless wave of feeling. 

“Oh,” Eddie said very softly. He wasn’t sure what his face was doing, but it was making Richie stare at him like he couldn’t understand what he was seeing. 

“Eddie,” Richie said, and his voice was low and hoarse in a way that seemed to hit Eddie somewhere deep inside him. “Eddie—Eddie, can I?”

Richie was leaning toward him, his arms reaching for Eddie—his long, hairy big arms. Arms that were strong and that Eddie had always liked having around him, selfishly, in hugs or wrestling or as Richie shielded him from whatever threats were coming their way. 

Eddie allowed Richie to draw close, to lean down. Richie hovered, his face so close to Eddie’s that his hot breath hit Eddie’s mouth on every exhale. He seemed to be waiting. Finally, Eddie nodded, and Richie kissed him, slow and tentative and good, really good, good in a way that dawned on Eddie slowly, then all at once. He made a sound and his arms came up, grasping at Richie, feeling the solid warmth of him.

Eddie had never kissed like that before; he had never _been_ kissed like that before. All the stories, the songs, the movies—they all made sense now. His whole life, they’d seemed incomprehensible, like a language he didn’t speak and couldn’t learn, but he understood it all, right there in Richie’s arms, with Richie’s tongue in his mouth. _This_ was what kissing was supposed to be like! _This_ was what the fuss was all about!

He allowed Richie to manhandle him, to turn him and press him against the side of the bridge. He could feel the wood through the thin fabric of his pants. Somewhere on there, possibly under his own butt, were letters Richie had carved, proof of his love. 

Eddie couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe he was there, full on making out like teenagers in public. It was embarrassing, but he couldn’t bring himself to care. Instead, he moaned and opened his mouth wider and sucked on Richie’s tongue like he was dying for it. 

Richie was making soft sounds back, deep and rumbly; he was holding Eddie so tight, oh god—his big hands spanning Eddie’s back, his legs pressing up against Eddie’s own. Eddie moaned again and held on and let the outside world fade away until there was nothing but Richie and Richie’s mouth against his own.

 **12:59 am**

“We should get back,” Eddie said quietly into Richie’s neck.

“Soon,” Richie said, and squeezed him. 

Eddie’s face was raw from Richie’s stubble, his lips swollen. His head was aching from tiredness and emotion. 

He felt amazing.

He nestled closer to Richie. “Yeah, okay. Soon.”

 **1:41 am**

Lying in bed with Richie was possibly the best experience of Eddie’s life—narrowly beaten out by their first kiss. Richie had a broad chest perfect for resting heads on and he was big enough that Eddie didn’t have to worry about crushing him. Richie also immediately put an arm around Eddie as soon as they lay down together, which made Eddie feel enclosed and safe and warm from head to toe. 

There was a lot they still had to talk about. Richie committing manslaughter for one; what was going to happen to them all after they finally left this hotel for another. But Eddie didn’t want to talk about those things. 

Instead, he said, “You saved my life.”

Eddie felt Richie tilt his head, his chin brushing over the top of Eddie’s hair. “Huh?”

“Back in the cavern. After you fell from the Deadlights. You pulled me away.”

Suddenly, he was there again, Richie below him, dazed and breathless, but his eyes focusing, returning back to himself. The fierce pride Eddie had felt, knowing he’d saved Richie, knowing he’d dealt the clown a mortal blow—that he had finally broken through his paralyzing fear and taken action. And then Richie gasping and rolling them over—knees and elbows knocking against the ground, Eddie tucking in his chin to protect his bandaged cheek, everything a blur until they ended up flat on the ground a foot away, just in time to see one of the clown’s legs withdraw from the space where Eddie had been.

“How did you know,” Eddie asked quietly into the stillness of Richie’s room. 

Beneath him, Richie was shaking a little, minute tremors running through him. Eddie was sure he wasn’t going to answer, but then Richie said, “I saw it in the Deadlights.”

Eddie wanted to push more, but he could almost smell Richie’s fear and the last thing he wanted to do now was disturb the delicate peace they’d drawn around them like a blanket. “Can you tell me?” he asked instead. 

Richie’s arms tightened around him. “Not now. Later.”

“Okay,” Eddie said. “Later.”

Later they would meet up with the others in the morning. Later they would have to pick up the pieces of the lives they’d abandoned to come here and decide what to do with them. Later he would have to talk to Myra again, apologize again, move out, call a lawyer. 

But that was later. Now, there was a soft bed and moonlight glimmering through the cracks in the blinds; Richie beneath him and around him. 

“Goodnight,” he said, and pressed a kiss to the bit of Richie’s chest he could reach. “I love you.”

Richie’s breath hitched, and then Eddie felt him kiss the top of Eddie’s head. “Love you too,” he whispered. 

Eddie felt asleep smiling. 

**6:11 am**

When Eddie swam up into consciousness, Richie was still holding him. Eddie murmured and shifted, and Richie’s arms tightened then let go, enough that Eddie could crane his head away and blink up at Richie sleepily. 

“You’re awake,” he said. 

Richie looked back, his face peaceful and pained and entirely open. Eddie stared, drinking it in. 

“I got a few hours,” Richie said quietly. “You should go back to sleep. You need your rest.”

Eddie shook his head. “I want to be awake with you.”

“Oh,” Richie said, airlessly. 

Eddie yawned and put his head back down, feeling the quiet of the room press down on him like a blanket. 

Richie tightened his arms around Eddie again. “Hey, look,” he said quietly, into the shell of Eddie’s ear. “Sunrise.”

The sky was pink and gold and orange. Eddie rested his head against Richie’s chest, hearing his heartbeat under his ear, strong and steady. Together, they watched as a new day began.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Come say hi on [tumblr](https://moosetifying.tumblr.com/) or [ twitter](https://twitter.com/moosetification).


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